A website is an essential element for running a successful business. A business without a website can potentially lose out on great opportunities since potential customers can’t reach you, find you and learn about you online.
Creating a small business website can lead to many different ways to market your business and help it grow much faster than relying on traditional marketing methods alone. If you’re looking for a way to reach more customers, or people to influence, the internet is where your business needs to be.
With over 78% of adult Americans using the Internet and a remarkable 2.2 billion people online worldwide, it’s no surprise that small businesses with websites experience an average of 39% greater revenue per year than those without websites, according to the Small Business Administration.
Website Essentials
There are hundreds of millions websites and billions of web pages on the Internet. The formula for a successful website is fairly straight forward. Here are some of the essentials.
There are certain pages every website can’t be without. A small business’s site needs to give visitors what they are most likely to be looking for.
If you’re getting a website together for your small business or reinventing an existing site, take a look at the five essential pages every small business website needs. We include three other recommended pages as well.
Homepage
Your homepage is the virtual lobby of your business, the first thing people notice when they visit the site. It’s therefore vital that your homepage presents your business in a professional and engaging light. Make a great first impression!
As research from the Neilsen Norman Group highlights, you have less than 10 seconds to convey your value proposition. Get to the point about what your business is about. Keep words concise, punchy and compelling to hook visitors and get them to explore deeper into your site.
Selecting an Available Domain Name
Back in the dark ages (1990s) selecting a website domain name was kind of random. Some names were obvious. Others were simple contractions – like The Computing Center becoming www.compcenter.com. Today, it’s a lot more complicated and sometimes it appears that all the good domain names are already taken. Not so…read on.
I'd be a zillionaire if I earned a dollar each time someone complains that all the great domain names are already taken. It's just not true, however. Even in a highly competitive industry, you can think up original, appealing domain names for businesses by using naming tactics that few people use, such as these:
1. Focus on results. What is the outcome or end result that people want to have from buying a certain product or service? How do they feel when they have finished the transaction? My own company name, Named At Last, falls into this category.
Which Cookies are Good for You?
It’s open to debate which type of cookie is more prevalent today: the bite-sized snack or the byte-sized data pack. Both can make your life simpler and more pleasurable, but both may also come with side effects. Here’s a recipe to keep the cookies in your life from getting the upper hand.
Cookies that are your friends
Cookies are small packets of information that the sites you visit place on your computer, in many cases to improve your browsing experience. They help Amazon remember what you put in your shopping cart and proffer up your credit card number when you check out, for example. These are called “first-party” cookies, because they work directly for the sites you visit.
Bar Code Technology & More
Bar codes, QR codes & RFID tags can feel like another language to the uninitiated. However, these technologies are in use all over and can be very useful for your business or organization.
Scanning technology is moving far beyond the laser-scanned barcodes you've become familiar with at grocery stores, gyms, and concerts. In fact, you're likely using or benefiting from next-generation RFID and QR codes right now. The NFL used RFID in 2015 to provide what it calls "Next Gen Stats" for every player on the field.1 Your own business could be using this scanning technology to boost your bottom line, attract customers, control inventory, and more.
While RFID, QR codes, and barcodes are all ways to communicate information in a way that machines can quickly and easily understand, there are key differences between each. Here's what these technologies are, how they work, and how you can take advantage of them.
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